Tag Archive: MSM

Yesterday we hadEd MilibandandDouglas Alexanderboth maintaining that millions of jobs depend on this country’s membership of the European Union.

The truth of the matter is that trade, on which a great many jobs do depend, does not depend on being a member of the European Union (EU) but on membership of the European Economic Community (EEA).

This is not the only lie that is perpetuated where the UK’s relationship with the EU is concerned; we have had Cameron alluding to the fact that if the UK left the EU we would be in a similar positiion to that of Norway who he maintained was ‘governed by fax’. We have had the lie that to be in Brussels is to be at the ‘top table’ when decisions are made, when it is a fact that Brussels is not the ‘top table’, the ‘top table’ being situated within UN bodies scattered across Europe and elsewhere; which is where the actual ‘decisions’ are taken.

But the dishonesty involved in these lies does not rest solely with our politicians; it also lies with our media – both audio, visual and print, in other words the MSM. I was about to write that not once have I seen, heard or read an anything in the MSM detailing how the public are being misled about not just the EU, but also climate change, immigration, defense, energy – to name but a few subjects – but then I had momentarily forgotten, for example, Christopher Booker. Yes there are other journalists who rail against the duplicity of our politicians – again for example, Peter Hitchens and Gerald Warner spring to mind – but the number who do can be almost counted on the fingers of one hand.

Yes, reporting what politicians say is news per se, but if the MSM is in the business of reporting news then do they not have a duty to check that what they are reporting is factually correct? Reporting news is but informing their readership of what is happening and being said, but if – as is obvious – they are reporting lies or untruths, then they are not informing their readers of the full facts.

We are frequently informed that so and so owns this media outlet and so and so owns that media outlet, but do they – or do the political class? The question is posed as, based on what actually appears in our MSM, another question arises; and that is in whose pocket is who where the relationship of the MSM and our politicians is concerned.

I posed the question in the heading to this post: are the media unknowing? It is actually incorrect as a question but, lamentably, only too true as a statement. This has been caused by an educational system that has been ‘dumbed down’ over many decades whereby the products of that system have lost the power of reason and thought.

One could be forgiven for believing that the political master plan is shortly to come to fruition – if it has not already.

SIR – Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, and the water companies need to explain their plans to deal with water infrastructure. Bountiful rain has only just saved them.

We need to know what pumping proposals, routes and infrastructure are actually being considered; why Government has not endorsed the construction of new reservoirs; and why no desalination plants have been commissioned.

Prayer, though commendable, is not the sensible solution to the water problem. Why can the minister not demand the implementation of realistic, and necessary, infrastructure requirements?

James Bishop Gisla, Isle of Lewis”

That a member of the public can be ignorant of the ‘actualité’ can be laid at the door of our politicians and MSM as neither do that which they should and inform the public. James Bishop asks why Spelman does not demand the implementation of realistic and necessary infrastructure requirements – to which the simple answer is that “Caroline is under the spell, man”. AsRichard North, EUReferendum, so lucidly explained at the beginning of last month, the EU has effectively taken over water management policy.

Of course, had we any real Eurosceptic Tory MPs or MEPs (Carswell and Hannan most noticeable by their absence) they would have written that which Richard North did (if they did, I missed it). Had we a real MSM, the Sunday Telegraph would have picked out this letter and perhaps done a comment editorial or passed it to one of their ‘investigative journalists’ for an article.

It would appear that the drips from which we suffer are in politics and the MSM – and not our taps!

…..and unfortunately it is the electorate of this country that permit said immorality. Writing in the Daily Telegraph,Philip Johnston, asks how is it ethical of a government to remove 40 per cent of an individual’s income with the purpose of engineering society the way it sees fit and is it not immoral that each year, billions of pounds are taken in tax for programmes that by no measure can be justified in the public good, while at the same time the individual’s right and duty to choose is restricted.

Next up we find Robert Colville, same newspaper, discussing what sort of political party could be precision-engineered to appeal to all voters as he maintains the Tories are seen as on the Right whilst Labour are seen on the left and that both need to move to the centre. While having suggested that parties need to move to the centre for voter appeal, he then asserts that his precision-engineered party would have to be tough on crime, immigration, human rights and welfare. Err, is not being tough where those subjects are concerned seen as policies of the right? If Colville can write that rubbish – and get it published – then one has to ask what planet he and his editor have been on for the last few years.

It is indeed a sad state of affairs that one of these journalists – and I use that word in the loosest possible sense – can see that our system of governance has become characterised by grotesque waste, unfulfilled promises, incompetent delivery and excessive red tape and cannot arrive at the next logical step that that system of governance needs changing, then heaven help us – and him! Cutting taxation whilst leaving the same set of clowns in office will achieve nothing – neither will praising the clown of clowns, Boris Johnson.

When one considers that the objective of any media should be the dissemination of – and reflection on – the prevailing currents of thought, influence and/or activity of politicians, then it must be obvious to even the most blind of the electorate that none of what the media should be doing, namely educating the electorate, happens. That there are of course exceptions to every rule can be witnessed by the likes of Booker (writing about the EU, energy and child abuse by the judiciary), Gilligan (postal voting fraud) and Delingpole (global warming and anything else that takes his fancy) – unfortunately they are but three voices among the many, the latter being too busy using their tongues on the lower orifice of the political class.

It has been said that given control of a country’s economy results in control of that country; no, given control of a country’s media results in control of that country – which is exactly what our political class have accomplished. It has also been proposed that due to the power of the internet information can be made more readily available, thus allowing the political class to be ‘constrained’ – yet it has to be pointed out that: (a) not everyone is connected to the internet; (b) a great number who are, sadly are not interested in events political; and (c) those that are and know that something is drastically wrong with our country, its democracy and politics in general form but a small percentage of the electorate.

How to break the stranglehold on information that politicians and their sycophantic media have – and thus educate the electorate – is but another area that one can but hope those attending Harrogate may, bearing in mind the constraints of time, consider.